


And Then There Were Two

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Long Walk - King
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-10-29
Updated: 2001-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slash, McVries/Garraty. Weird? Me? Surely you jest. Anyway, it's very minor. Hell, even with no warnings, how much can two guys do in a minute and a half?</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Then There Were Two

**Author's Note:**

> These characters belong to Stephen King (aka Richard Bachman).

They were three: Stebbins, McVries, Garraty.

Garraty was pacing just ahead of the other two, but dropped back to walk between them as they passed a sign saying FORTY MILES TO BOSTON! in jubilant Day-Glo green lettering. All three of them were walking free of warnings, miraculously, but were walking so slowly that it seemed they must soon drop below the four-mile-an-hour speed limit.

'Hey,' Stebbins said.

'Hmmm?'

'It just occurred to me that normally you get done in for going _over_ the speed limit.' Stebbins cackled. McVries cracked a small smile. Garraty just sighed and gave the finger to some dipshit in the crowd throwing rotten eggs.

'Stebbins?'

'Yeah?'

'Where do you come up with this shit?' Garraty's foot came down on one of the broken eggs and he skidded, pinwheeling his arms, but managed to stay upright. The crowd booed and laughed. Garraty wished he had something to throw back at them.

'What, you didn't feel me bend you over and scrape it out of your arse?'

'Nah. Thought it was McVries getting his jollies.' Garraty smiled wanly at McVries, who, to his surprise, let out a hoot of laughter.

'He's getting good, Stebbins, think you can beat him?'

'Beat my meat, Pete,' Stebbins returned smartly.

'Yeah, well, I think that'd have to break one of the eighty-fuckin-thousand rules of the Walk. And God forbid I should do that.' McVries waved at a blonde, big-breasted girl on the edge of the crowd. She lifted her hand to wave back, but then saw his face and didn't. Garraty looked at McVries's face and had to agree with her. He wouldn't wave at a walking skeleton either.

McVries reached up and touched the scar on his cheek. 'That's right,' he said to nobody. 'First Pris, then strangers.' He looked at Garraty. 'Are you gonna dump me too?'

'I didn't realise we were dating,' Garraty said. He felt strangely uneasy.

'Long Walk's one big date, didn't you know that? It's like dating. The duds go first, then the pleasant-looking guys but who just want to screw around. The ones in for the long haul are the ones who can keep fucking all day and all night and not get tired.' Stebbins wasn't even out of breath after that.

'You're full of opinions, aren't you,' Garraty said.

Stebbins shook his head. 'I'm full of shit. Shit is cleaner than opinions. Nobody gets killed over shit. Plenty of people get killed over opinions.'

'Hear hear,' said McVries hollowly.

'I think opinions are important,' Garraty began.

'Just like true love, right?' Stebbins asked. When Garraty didn't answer, Stebbins took three running steps and settled back to his steady pace a few yards ahead of Garraty and McVries.

'He's full of _weird_ shit,' Garraty said, loud enough for Stebbins to hear.

McVries reached out and patted his hand. 'You're a sweetheart, Ray,' he said kindly. 'You'll win this thing.'

'Win? Me? No way. Stebbins's like the Energiser Bunny or whatever the fuck it is. And you... I don't know what you're running on, but it's not gonna run out.'

'True love,' McVries said, eyes gleaming.

It started to rain.

* * *

'Three Musketeers,' McVries said twenty minutes later.

'You talking about the candy bar?' Stebbins was over his snit and was walking with them again. 'I could really go for a Mars, personally.'

'No, I wasn't. I was thinking how now it's really the Three Musketeers. One for all and all for one. Except this is reality, and the Musketeers stuff isn't. Not anymore.' McVries waved through the pelting rain at the road ahead of them. 'Now it's just one foot in front of the other, wee, wee, wee, all the way to Boston, and if I win my Prize is gonna be a bullet through my own head.'

Garraty was intrigued. 'Why?' His bare feet were slapping on the wet asphalt.

'Because it's better than being a rat in a cage for the rest of my life.' McVries gestured at the crowd. 'Scientists.' At the three of them. 'Rats.' He smiled. 'Squeak.'

'But if you die here, it _will_ be the rest of your life anyway,' Stebbins said.

'Oh, will you shut the fuck up?' Garraty asked, tired. 'Who gives a toss, anyway. You could have every fuckin spectator here shot, McVries, how would that be? Buy 'em tickets for interfering with the path of true love.'

McVries snickered. 'My my my, you got a mouth on you.'

'What, would you prefer it was on you?'

McVries shrugged. 'Maybe it's you two destined to waltz off into the sunset together.' He scanned the pavement, as if looking for something. 'Yes, I think it is.' His head drooped forward.

'Sleepytime?' Stebbins asked.

'No.' McVries paused a second, then knelt on the wet ground. 'Time to sit down.' He lowered himself back onto the ground and crossed his legs, sitting like a yogi about to learn the divine secrets of the world.

'Pete! No!' Garraty, three steps ahead, stopped, turned around, went back to try and lift McVries.

'Ray! No more Musketeers!' Stebbins's voice was a crow's caw in the rain-driving darkness.

'Warning! Warning 61!'

'Warning! Warning 47!'

There was no warning for 88 -- Stebbins had kept his own counsel and kept walking.

'Pete, dammit, get up!'

McVries turned sleepy eyes up to Garraty. 'No, Ray. Time to sit down.'

'_Pete_!' Garraty dropped to one knee, tried to lift McVries into his arms.

McVries cupped one hand around the back of Garraty's neck, drew him close, kissed him. His lips were not dry -- the rain had solved that problem -- but they were cold, and Garraty felt as if he was being kissed by a corpse.

Maybe he was.

But he kissed back anyway, giving McVries this one last memory of life before McVries went beyond life, and the crowd was silent in shock, and the thud of soldiers jumping down off the halftrack was the only sound Garraty could hear.

'See you on the other side,' McVries said, letting him go. Garraty slid his arm from under McVries's folded legs, took a step back, then a second, staring at McVries in horrified fascination.

'Second warnings, 47 and 61!'

'Warning! Warning 88!'

It was Stebbins, of course, running back through the rain, slipping and sliding through the puddles, and catching Garraty's arm, dragging him back. 'You dumb fuck!' he hissed. 'You really think he'd want you to watch?'

Garraty faced forward, Stebbins's hands on his shoulders, and obediently let himself be shunted forward through the rain. They heard McVries's third warning, then the shot, and walked on along the road that was now a loveless road, the road of a relationship gone rocky.

And then there were two.


End file.
